The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Ambassador David Friedman says a new page has been turned in U.S.-Israel relations under President Trump.

David Friedman, the United States ambassador to Israel, said on
Tuesday that a new page has been turned in U.S.-Israel relations under
the administration of President Donald Trump.

“The President was very strong,” Friedman told Arutz Sheva after Trump’s speech
at the UN General Assembly. “He made it very clear how the U.S. is
going to protect its allies, protect its values, and not wait 10 years
for a problem to develop if it can be resolved now.”

Friedman said he agreed with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who said Trump’s speech was “bold and courageous”.

Asked if he believes Trump is going to cancel the deal with Iran, the
ambassador replied, “I don’t know. That’s his decision to make. I don’t
want to speak for him.”

Turning to the relationship between the United States and Israel
since Trump has taken office, Friedman said, “I think you’ve seen a page
turn here. It’s a completely different relationship, one that’s, I
think, pro-Israel and hopefully not just pro-Israel but also in favor of
the values that the United States and Israel share together.”

“Shana Tova U’Metuka. Ketiva V’Chatima Tova,” he concluded, greeting the Jewish people ahead of the High Holy Days.

Eliran AharonSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/235777 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Egyptian President urges Palestinian Arabs to be ready to co-exist with each other and with Israelis in safety and security.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi

Reuters

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on Tuesday urged Palestinian
Arabs to overcome their differences and be ready to co-exist with each
other and with Israelis in safety and security.

"I tell the Palestinian people it's extremely important ... to
overcome the differences and not to lose opportunities and to be ready
to accept co-existence with the other, with Israelis in safety and
security," Sisi said in a speech before the UN General Assembly, as
quoted by Reuters.

Addressing Israelis, the Egyptian President said, "We have an
excellent experience in Egypt in peace with you for longer than 40
years."

"We can repeat this experience and this excellent step once again -
the peace and security of the Israeli citizens together with the peace
and security of the Palestinian citizens," Sisi told the 193-member
General Assembly to a round of applause.

The 90-minute meeting at the Palace Hotel in New York City covered
regional issues including instability in Gaza and efforts by the Trump
administration to reboot talks between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority.

A statement by the Prime Minister’s Office following the conclusion
of the meeting said the two leaders held a “comprehensive discussion
about the problems of the region.”

The Egyptian leader “expressed his desire to assist in efforts to
achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians and the region.”

Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979, with Egypt becoming the first Arab country to sign a treaty with Israel.

Sisi’s comments also follow an announcement by Hamas
this week that it was willing to hold talks with Fatah, which is headed
by Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, as well as to
dismantle the Gaza administrative committee, which served as a local
independent governing authority.

Abbas’s spokesman welcomed Hamas's decision
to restart reconciliation efforts earlier this week, calling it "a step
in the right direction" and a "genuine historic opportunity" to end the
rift between the sides.

The #Resistance Dems are at it again.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the
Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on
the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

The Paris
Commune, the Bavarian Soviet Republic and the California legislative
supermajority of Dems are shining examples of what happens when insane
leftists take over a formerly prosperous place.

“The issue of resistance is beyond the symbolism,” Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon declared.
“A lot of other municipalities, as well as other states, are looking
towards California … to be the leader of this resistance.”

The
“resistance” is to President Trump, democracy and sanity. California
has the best student government in the world. And like every student
government, it’s eager to serve every leftist cause.

Forget good government. California is leading the “resistance.”

California lawmakers don’t waste time on trivialities like the pension
bomb. Instead they tackle the serious issues. That’s why the California
Assembly passed a bill mandating that Trump publish his taxes. The bill
is unconstitutional. U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton
settled that back in the 90s. If California wants to revisit that, it'll
have to rely on a dissent from Clarence Thomas. Not to mention Scalia.

The bill would be signed by Governor Brown who hasn’t released his own tax returns.

But following the law is for Republicans and little people.

And California legislators compulsively generate bills that are immune
to math, laws, precedent or legality. And that can only produce a
complete and utter disaster if they are implemented.

And they wouldn’t have it any other way.

In addition to the multiple gratuitous legislative attacks on
President Trump, which are as bizarre as they are unprecedented, there
was a bill, introduced by Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco, to
remove sex offenders from the sex offender registry. Wiener claimed that
the sex offender registry was homophobic. The bill, which passed, will
allow child rapists to be removed after 20 years, and gives child pornography distributors a pass after 10 years.

A spokesman for Governor Brown, whose former pal Jim Jones would have
been thrilled by the legislation, spoke glowingly of the bill. But this
is a state in which a statue of another Jim Jones ally, Harvey Milk, the
Democrat pedophile who lured runaway teens, decorates San Francisco City Hall.

Sadly, the “supervised heroin”
bill which would have allowed heroin addicts to shoot up under the
supervision of “qualified medical professionals” failed. But
Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman claims that her bill got lots of
“momentum” and will be back. Eggman is a member of both the LGBT Caucus
and the Latino Legislative Caucus. And those are the only qualifications
in California politics now.

Worse news still, it’s now
illegal to ingest "any marijuana product while driving". But employers
are not allowed to ask about your criminal history.

California
did manage to pass the “Gender Recognition Act” inventing “non-binary”
as a new gender and a bill sealing the juvenile records of teenagers who
commit murder and other horrifying crimes.

The sanctuary
state bill that bars law enforcement from asking illegal alien criminals
if they’re illegal aliens went through to media applause. Landlords are
also prohibited from reporting illegal aliens to the authorities.
Businesses would be forced to demand a warrant from ICE: whether they
want to or not.

“An employer… shall not provide voluntary
consent to an immigration enforcement agent to enter any nonpublic areas
of a place of labor,” the latter bill mandates.

The bill actually punishes Californians for cooperating with
Federal law enforcement. Where do they think they live anyway? America?

There are extensive fines for landlords and businesses that choose to
follow United States law and actually cooperate with immigration
authorities.

Before long, everyone in California will be banned from reporting illegal aliens.

And using the term “illegal alien” will be a hate crime punishable by
20 years working to construct the light rail to nowhere under the
supervision of undocumented non-binary sex offender murderers.

But there’s still no progress on the socialized medicine bill which
would cost a mere $400 billion. Or twice California’s current budget.
And the 100 percent renewable energy by 2046 hasn’t made it either. It
would be a mistake to attribute these setbacks to sudden outbreaks of
fiscal sanity. There’s no such thing in Sacramento. California is run by
a crooked leftist oligarchy based on identity politics and special
interests.

The California Senate will do anything and
everything for illegal aliens. But when some unions didn’t like the
latest renewable push, it stalled. It’s easy enough to protect child
rapists because the coalition doesn’t care about children. It does care a
great deal about alternate sexual identities, illegal aliens and heroin
users. The homeless and criminals are top priorities. But while members
of the oligarchy don’t care about children, they have compelling
financial interests involving alternate energy sources.

Identity politics is important. But money matters more. And disguising that is the “resistance” circus.

Assemblyman Miguel Santiago taunts Trump as a "Russian crony" even
while he promotes a college affordability program hosted by the Mexican
Consulate. He attended a DACA shutdown opposition event alongside
Senator Armando Ríos Piter, a Mexican politician who had called for
retaliating against Trump by seizing American property in Mexico. Whose
crony is Miguel Santiago?

Santiago was “inspired” to get into
politics by propositions 187 and 209. These last gaps of democracy in
California were quickly snuffed out. Illegal immigration and affirmative
action rule now. The old people power propositions have either been
rolled back or will be. Instead Dem pols drift in from the Mexican
Independence Day celebration to find new punitive measures to protect
their illegal alien voting bloc.

The left is in charge and is doing what it always does.

The Paris Commune returned to the old radical obsession with remaking
the calendar as soon as it could. It abolished the death penalty even
while killing hostages. It claimed the right to conscience even as it
was seizing churches. Instead of preparing to fight, it spent its time
on pointless political debates, circular firing squads and finally
burning buildings that stood for the wrong sorts of things.

The California Commune has no interest in fixing the problems that it’s busy creating.

It decriminalized drugs and now has to worry about driving while high.
It decriminalized public defecation and a hepatitis outbreak is
sweeping San Diego. Its social policy spending sprees are bringing
California closer to the economic abyss. Instead of dealing with these
problems, the Dem supermajority will virtue signal on illegal aliens, on
socialized medicine, on non-binary genders and on criminals.

It’s just easier that way.

California’s leftists would rather be the anti-Trump resistance than do the responsible thing.

Legal and illegal migration allowed the left to seize power in
California. And now California is being destroyed by the left. But at
least the undocumented pedophiles will have socialized medicine.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267905/california-dems-protect-child-rapists-and-fight-daniel-greenfieldFollow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

--------

An Israeli air force Patriot missile Tuesday shot
down an Iran-made Hizballah drone over the Syrian border town of
Quneitra in the demilitarized zone. The UAV took off from Damascus air
port. The IAF first scrambled fighter jets, before launching the missile
from a site near the Galilee town of Safed.

“Israel will not allow Iran, Hizballah or other forces to infiltrate or
approach its territory in the Golan Heights,” the IDF Spokesperson said
in a statement.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report: This was the
first time an IDF missile had intercepted a Hizballah drone in Syrian
air space. In the past, fighter jets found it hard to down drones
entering Golan air space and ended up shooting a Patriot missile.
Hizballah’s purpose in sending the drone was apparently to test the
state of readiness of IDF air defenses in northern Israel – but no less
to see how the Russians would react when an Israeli UAV flew over a
Russian-US de-escalation zone in southern Syria, that is under Russian
surveillance.

debkaFileSource: https://www.debka.com/israeli-patriot-missile-downs-hizballah-drone-quneitra/ Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The rule
is simple: The more legitimate a country's regime is, the more stable
it is, because people have less of a tendency to turn to outside
forces for help in struggles against the government.

Every few days I receive queries from readers who want to know more
about the "Emirate Plan," an idea I have suggested as a solution to the
Israel-Palestinian Arab conflict in Judea and Samaria as well as Gaza.
Recently, a reader sent me a list of questions and I am dedicating
today's article to his questions and reservations.

He wrote:

"I
would like to acquaint you with some of the reservations I have
concerning your plan and why it does not suit everyone involved:

1.
In the interests of historical justice, the initial cooperation between
seven Emirates was accomplished under the aegis of Great Britain, which
pushed for the establishment of a council for cooperation which
included a British representative, and promoting healthy economic
cooperation and so on. It was not established as a result of Arab tribal
cohesiveness and self interest.

Response: The
British were definitely involved in creating the Gulf Emirates, but
only in the beginning, during the "trial" stage of their independence.
After a short period of time, the Emirates took the reins into their own
hands after gaining the necessary knowledge enabling them to run things
on their own and the British stepped out of the picture. The Emirates
exist because each rests on the foundation of a strong and dominant
tribe. The British, after all, came up with the idea because of their
ignominious defeat in Iraq, a country established thirty years earlier
as a diverse conglomerate of tribes, ethnic groups, religions and sects,
who never united and never created a cohesive social fabric that could
facilitate their definition as a nation. That is the reason for Iraq's
unsolvable problems – they began with its inception.

2.
As soon as they stopped earning their keep as fishermen and realized
there was a goldmine lying under their feet, the Emirates were smart
enough to unite their forces in order to control the speed at which oil
Is produced, and its price,. Since they are all satisfied with the way
things are working, there are no arguments and their governments are
stable.

Response: Oil does play a decisive
part in the Emirate economies, but it is not the only factor. Dubai has
no oil or gas reserves, with only 1% of its economy based on the two
resources. Despite this, Dubai is one of the richest countries in the
world, while Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Sudan are oil producers and some of
the poorest. It is not oil reserves that are the dominant factor in
making a nation wealthy and its citizens happy, but social stability
that leads to economic and political stability.

You mention,
accurately so, that when everyone is satisfied, that prevents conflicts,
but that is not a sufficient condition for tranquility: those who are
satisfied must be able to live inside their own frameworks – or borders –
while respecting those of their neighbors. That is the essence of the
Emirate system.

3. On the other hand, Qatar and Bahrain left the Emirates and opted for complete independence.

Response:
That is quite true, and so did Kuwait. It is important to recall that
there is territorial contiguity between the seven United Emirates, while
Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait – the latter an island in the Gulf – are not
contiguous with them. In addition, the United Emirates are a fairly
free confederation, with each keeping its sovereignty intact, somewhat
like the EU, and the commonalities shared by the Emirates are not enough
to form a single state. The system works mainly because each one of the
Emirates runs its own affairs without any interference from other
members of the union.

4. It is not
only money that keeps them together, there is also a demographic factor
at work: Less than 20% of those residing in the Emirates were born
there. Most are immigrants or foreign workers, which means that the
leading classes created a private empire without having to worry about
the welfare of their citizens, because there are none.

Response: True,
there are those in the Emirates who complain about the fact that the
original residents have become a minority in their own countries over
the years. Still, they are the rightful citizens, while the foreign
workers and businessmen are not citizens, have no political aspirations
and no influence on local politics. The biggest problem facing the
Emirates is not demographic, the problem is the fact that they do not
work and have become a lazy and indolent consumer society whose time is
spent purchasing more and more eye dropping goods, mainly luxury cars,
expensive watches, gold jewelry and opulent homes. The Emirates'
citizens live the lives of the idle nouveau riche and their moral fabric
is in dire need of improvement…

5. Their money enables them to
equip themselves with American weapons and live under the wing of the US
and the West, so Iran leaves them alone for the moment.

Response:
The weapons purchased by the Emirates are no match for an Iranian
attack. Since the Emirate army has no battle experience, they have
joined the Saudi armed forces. The West has granted them an "insurance
policy" in order to ensure the continued flow of needed oil and gas as
well as to lower the price of energy in the world. The West defended the
Emirates from Saddam Hussein and freed Kuwait in early 1991 after
Saddam conquered it a year earlier. The West, at this point in time, is
also protecting the Gulf Emirates from Iran,but the more the US frees
itself from dependence on Gulf oil,the less it sees the Emirates as
vital to the West's economic security.

6.Most
of the countries in the region are poor, and without a well run and
functioning economy, there will not be a regime strong enough to run
its own affairs without attempting to encroach on the territory and food
supplies of its neighbors.

Response: Middle
Eastern poverty is mainly a result of the endless inner conflicts in
the area, as well as from a warped educational culture and from
government corruption expressed in the theft of public funds and a lack
ofinvestment in infrastructure (electricity, communications, roads,
water, sewage). If the formation of the Emirates is accomplished by
consent, part of that process will be an organized and agreed upon
method for division of resources.

Somaliland arose on the ruins of
Somalia. The four main tribes that live there have agreed to cease the
wars that raged between them and cooperate for the common good.The same
thing can happen everywhere in the Arab world

7. What common
interest could hold several tribes in the same region together without
them going to war? In the Middle East, the more violent you are the
more powerful you are, especially when you have nothing to lose.

Response:
In some of the cities of Judea and Samaria – Hevron, Shechem,
Ramallah – there are several families, each one with its own tribal
court for settling conflicts, and the solution suggested by the
elders of the tribe is accepted by all. This is the dynamics that have
developed in these cities where the Palestinian Authority is not seen as
a legitimate entity when it comes to local disputes.

8.
Moreover, Iran would like to cement its influence and vanquish the Sunni
world. When the Sunnis separate into individual tribes, Iran will be
able to exert its influence easily and gain control over the small
emirates in need of aid, money and weapons.

Response:
On the contrary, Iran managed to infiltrate Syria and Iraq without
difficulty, taking advantage of the infighting between Muslims and
Alawites in Syria and between everyone and his brother in Iraq. Iran has
not succeeded in destabilizing the Emirate regimes despite the large
number of Iranians who immigrated to the Gulf Emirates over the years.
It also has not succeeded in destabilizing Saudi Arabia, where the
tribes united in the traditional way, through marriage.

The rule
is simple: The more legitimate a country's regime is, the more stable
it is, because people have less of a tendency to turn to outside
forces for help in struggles against the government. The more
legitimate a regime is, the more it cares about its citizens and is
willing to reach agreements with those able to provide for their needs:
water, food, etc.

I will be happy to receive more questions from readers, so that I can write about them in future articles.

I
want to take the opportunity to wish everyone in the world a happy new
year, one of peace and tranquility, security and growth, a year in
which all the hopes in our hearts come true for the good of mankind,
amen.

Written for Arutz Sheva, translated by Rochel Sylvetsky

Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan
University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years,
specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic
groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with Arab
media in real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news
programs in Israel.Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21042 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Welcome to Europe’s future. It is not a sci-fiction movie. It is happening right now!

It is in Liguria, one of the most touristic Italian regions, that
archeologists made the discovery of the oldest remains of Homo Sapiens
in Europe. A few years ago, in the Ligurian town of Riparo Bombrini, a
team of archaeologists discovered two teeth belonging to the oldest Homo
sapiens. But Liguria today has another less enviable record: it is the
oldest and most sterile region in Europe.

Italy lost
25,000 people in 2010 due to the demographic crisis. But if it had the
same rate of Liguria and Genoa, it would have lost 250,000: an
apocalypse.

Liguria is the eighth richest Italian region. A
very wealthy area. Yet, the world studies Liguria to understand the
future of countries committing suicide. The percentage of people over 75
years old in the Italian region of Liguria, already 13 percent, the
highest figure across Europe, will rise to 18 percent by 2030.

Savona
is the province of Liguria where 28.1 per cent of the population is
over 65 (only two years ago the percentage was 27 per cent). In Liguria,
the elderly are over 433,000, almost one-third of the population.
Liguria is also the region with the largest number of abortions in
Italy: 11.87 cases per 1,000 women. This process of self liquidation
began in the time when Genoa, Liguria’s capital, held the medals of
consumerism: more smoking, more electrodes, more TVs, more perfumes and
beauty creams.

But Genoa was already a city of old people who had no time to deliver children into the world.

On
June 30, 2016, 1 million and 566 thousand people lived in Liguria. Only
three years before, in 2013, there were 1 million and 591 thousand:
24,900 more. As if in the meantime a city like Ventimiglia had
disappeared. In Liguria, the family is dying as the cell of society (in
2008, Liguria held first place for the number of divorces in relation to
the population). In the first nine months of 2016, 1,022 weddings were
celebrated in Genoa, down from 1,115 in the first nine months of 2015
(-8.3%). The Ligurians are at the top of the Italian singles ranking. Schools
and maternity wards are closing. International conferences are
organized in the city with emblematic titles: "Genoa after the
depopulation", realized in collaboration with the University of Genoa
and the European Commission. In 20 years one inhabitant out of four of
Genoa emigrated or died.

Welcome to Europe’s future. It is not a sci-fiction movie. It is happening right now! Giulio Meotti, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for
Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched
the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter
and of "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua
Books.. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall
Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary.
Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21034 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

If professors are bad on free speech, so is the political class that succors them.

The Washington Post reports that a "chilling new study' shows that large numbers of college students are hostile to free speech. They believe that shouting down speakers they don't like and committing violence against them is acceptable. They fail to recognize that 'hate speech' is protected by the First Amendment."

According to columnist Catherine Rampell:

A fifth of undergrads now say it's acceptable to use physical force to silence a speaker who makes "offensive and hurtful statements."That's one finding from a disturbing new survey of students conducted by John Villasenor, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and University of California at Los Angeles professor.

I believe that the professors are the ones teaching the students to be against free speech. Look how many share the views of the student body with their "I need some muscle over here" kind of talk in front of the students. Melissa Click of the University of Missouri got fired after public exposure of that remark, but the fact remains that she would have kept on teaching this sort of thinking had she not been caught on camera. And she is not alone. The latest practitioner of incitement to violence is one Professor Stephen Isaacson of John Jay College, who said he was privileged to teach "future dead cops."

I chalk it up to the political atmosphere. If professors are bad on free speech, so is the political class that succors them.

President Obama's attorney general, Loretta Lynch, and her fellow Democrat state attorneys general threatened legal action against those who disagree with the government on climate change. Now, that is dangerous.The IRS blocked political opponents of the president through tax regulations in order to infringe on their free speech. Our government stifled the groups' ability to raise money and spread their message before the elections by failing to approve their tax-free status. That is not only extremely dangerous; it is illegal.The article about the state of things, how the assault on free speech has filtered down from the top, is useful. The First Amendment is extremely important for our freedom and future. I am glad that the press, even on the left side, in this Washington Post column, recognize that. It is a shame they didn't come down hard on Obama when he and his agencies stifled diverse thought.

Jack HellnerSource: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/09/students_idiots_on_free_speech_look_to_their_professors_and_politicians.html Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

U.C. Berkeley can study whatever they want. If they want to "honor the legacy" of what several commentators have referred to as a "glorified street gang," that is their right. But why use taxpayer money?

The radical Marxist revolutionary organization from the 1960s, the Black Panthers, will be the subject of an academic study conducted by the University of California-Berkeley to discover and honor the group's legacy.

The study is being funded by the American taxpayer via a grant for about $100,000 from, curiously, the National Park Service.

"This cooperative research project between the National Park Service (NPS) and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) on the Black Panther Party (BPP) is anchored in historical methods, visual culture, and the preservation of sites and voices," according to the funding announcement. "The project will discover new links between the historical events concerning race that occurred in Richmond during World War II and the subsequent emergence of the BPP in the San Francisco Bay Area two decades later through research, oral history, and interpretation.""Committed to truthfully honoring the legacy of BPP activists and the San Francisco Bay Area communities they served, the project seeks to document the lives of activists and elders and the landscapes that shaped the movement," the government said. "Producing an annotative bibliography that includes scholarly texts, newspaper, and magazine articles will be useful for future scholars of the movement. Equally significant, the project will document how the BPP impacted the visual arts, music, dance, and styles of the 1960s, 70s and 80s [and] will underscore the vastness of its impact on American culture.""Bay Area sites that shaped the BPP will be identified in an effort to memorialize a history that brought meaning to lives far beyond the San Francisco Bay Area," the agency added.Request for comment from the National Park Service was not returned.The Black Panther Party was founded in 1966 and originally championed self-defense and the arming of African Americans in California. The party quickly moved to the left, advocating for "revolutionary intercommunalism" and for abolishing capitalism.Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton introduced a 10-point platform that called for "an end to the robbery by the capitalists of the black community" and for all black men to be immediately released from prison.The FBI labels the Black Panther Party as advocates for "the use of violence and guerilla tactics to overthrow the U.S. government."The group dissolved in 1982. The New Black Panther Party was the subject of a voter intimidation case when two of its members stood outside of a polling station in Philadelphia wearing paramilitary clothing and holding a billy club during the 2008 presidential election. Original members of the Black Panther Party say the new group, which identifies as a Black Nationalist organization, has no connection to their party.

Needless to say, the National Park Service should stick to managing campsites and creating Smokey the Bear commercials. I'm sure that 100 grand could be better used to run our beautiful national parks.

U.C. Berkeley can study whatever they want. If they want to "honor the legacy" of what several commentators have referred to as a "glorified street gang," that is their right.

But why use taxpayer money? Can't they get one of their rich, far-left alumni to give them the cash?

Of course they can. But that's not the point. The answer to why they want to use taxpayer money is that they can. Several agencies are standing in line to fund nonsense like this, so why not take advantage?

More to the point is who the Black Panthers were, what they did, and why "honoring" them is such a travesty.

There have been many critiques written about the Panthers – some looking to condemn them, others to excuse their "revolutionary" activities. It's true that the Panthers tried to organize some of the poorest neighborhoods in America, setting up community centers, food banks, medical centers, and what they referred to as "Learning Centers." As David Horowitz explained in his amazing memoir, Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey, the Learning Center in San Francisco doubled as a front for criminal activities.

Those criminal activities included murder. In fact, Horowitz explains that the killing of a couple of close friends by the Panthers started the intellectual process that took him from radical leftist to conservative intellectual.

Horowitz dates the onset of his disillusionment to the time when he used his clout to get a job at the Learning Center for an acquaintance, a white accountant named Betty Van Patter who had worked with him at Ramparts. Weeks into the job, she disappeared; a transparent lack of curiosity among the Panther leaders made it clear they knew where she was. In fact, she had been murdered; her body soon washed ashore in the San Francisco Bay.Around the same time, Fay Stender, Huey Newton's former attorney, had become the target of a Panther vendetta for her refusal to smuggle a revolver into prison to help the gunman George Jackson escape. One day, a hit man arrived at her door, forced her to sign a "confession," shot her five times, and left her for dead. A year later, paralyzed and hiding from reprisal in Hong Kong, Stender took her own life.If Horowitz's conscience began to gnaw at him, his colleagues took a different view; for them, curiosity about Van Patter's or Stender's fate was tantamount to disloyalty to the cause. Horowitz recounts how, at Stender's funeral,

speaker after speaker went up to the platform to remember Fay – lawyers who worked with her, comrades who had served with her, friends who loved her. They were political activists who would normally have made a political symbolism out of the most trivial occurrence. Yet ... they had nothing to say about the sequence of events that had ended her life.

It was this silence that shattered Horowitz's world. "If we [progressives] actually succeeded in making a revolution in America," he recalls thinking, "and if the Panthers or similar radical vanguards prevailed, how would our fate be different" from that of the victims of Stalin's purges? "Our injustice, albeit mercifully smaller in scale, was as brutal and final as Stalin's. As progressives we had no law to govern us, other than that of the gang."

The leader of the Black Panters, Huey Newton, met his own violent end in 1989, shot dead in the street by a drug dealer.

The real "legacy" of the Black Panthers is not what Berkeley or the Park Service would like to hear. The left transformed a street gang with ultra-violent tendencies, masking their criminal activities in the rhetoric of revolution and radical chic anti-capitalism. If that sounds familiar, think of Black Lives Matter. Giving a patina of respectability to street thugs began with the Black Panthers in the 1960s and continues today.

Rick MoranSource: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/09/berkeley_receives_100k_to_honor_the_legacy_of_the_black_panther_party.html Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The new enemy of the left-wing establishment.

Yair Netanyahu, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 26-year-old son, has been getting some harsh press in recent weeks.
Yair walked (or toddled) onto the stage of public life when he was five years old as he and his then two-year-old little brother Avner accompanied their parents, Bibi and Sara, into the Prime Minister’s Residence for the first time in 1996.

For nearly 20 years, the Netanyahu boys were little more than a silent presence standing to the side of their parents on election nights. But while Avner remains on the sidelines while serving as a combat soldier, Yair is no longer a stage extra in his parents’ story.
In recent years the older Netanyahu boy has taken to Facebook. And it works out that he is quite an iconoclast.
Yair’s iconoclasm is unsurprising. The Israeli establishment has been bludgeoning his parents since Yair was learning to finger-paint. It would be bizarre if he sought its approval.
Not only does he not seek acceptance from the leftist elite, he clearly hold[s] its members in contempt.
And he’s happy to tell everyone what he thinks about them. Indeed, over the past month, as the criminal probes against his parents have dominated the news cycle, the frequency of Netanyahu’s controversial postings has steeply intensified.
In the last month alone, Yair’s posts have caused media furors three times.
At the beginning of August, Molad, a far-left NGO that supports the BDS movement, published a scathing attack on him on 61, a satirical website it runs.
Titled “Five things you didn’t know about Crown Prince Yair Netanyahu,” the piece attacked him for his political views, for continuing to live with his parents and for having publicly funded security guards, and a publicly funded car and driver.
In response, after pointing out that Molad never criticized the children of any other premier despite ample reason to do so, Yair referred to Molad as a “radical, anti-Zionist group financed by the Fund for Israel’s Destruction, and the European Union.”
Molad, which is funded by the New Israel Fund, European EU-funded foundations, anti-Israel, Jewish- born billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, responded in fine democratic form.
It filed a libel suit against Yair Netanyahu.
Two weeks after the Molad brouhaha, there was the face-off between the neo-Nazis and the violent leftists from Antifa at Charlottesville which left one leftist demonstrator murdered by a neo-Nazi.
The Israeli political and media classes stood as one with the US political establishment and condemned the neo-Nazis while ignoring the violent far-left protesters.
In so doing Israel’s national leadership incidentally or, in some cases deliberately, lent support to the US establishment’s condemnations of President Donald Trump for his decision to condemn “both sides” for their resort to violence rather than just the neo-Nazis.
Just as the conventional wisdom that only the neo-Nazis were to blame was getting set in stone, along came Yair Netanyahu and his Facebook page.
In a post in English, Yair condemned the neo-Nazis as “scums” who “hate me and my country.”
But, he said, “Their breed is dying out.”
Netanyahu continued, “The thugs from Antifa and BLM [Black Lives Matter] who hate my country (and America too in my view) just as much are getting stronger and stronger and becoming super dominant in American universities and public life.”
Netanyahu’s view of the neo-Nazis as a spent force is probably incorrect. True, their numbers aren’t very big, and to be sure, they do not hold sway in either major political party. But they do have the capacity to incite Jew-hatred on both sides of the ideological divide.
At the same time, his assertion that antisemitic groups on the Left are a “getting stronger and stronger” is entirely accurate.
Netanyahu said what Israel’s political leaders didn’t say. In so doing he blew the lid off the Left’s self-righteous lather over right-wing antisemites by asserting, accurately, that the bigger problem is in their political camp.
Not surprisingly, his statement enraged the leftist establishment. MK Micky Rosenthal, for instance, referred to Netanyahu as “Hitler Youth.”
This brings us to last weekend and Yair Netanyahu’s most recent media storm.
Last Friday the news broke that Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit is about to indict Sara Netanyahu for ordering take-out from restaurants even though one of the cleaning ladies at the Prime Minister’s Residence was doubling as a cook.
The next day, Yair Netanyahu published an extraordinary cartoon on his Facebook page.
Under the headline “Food Chain,” the cartoon featured Soros holding a globe and pulling the strings controlling a lizard.
The lizard in turn is pulling the strings controlling the Literati – or in current parlance – the elite.
The Literati image is pulling the strings controlling the prime minister’s arch-rival, former defense minister and prime minister Ehud Barak.
Barak is pulling the strings controlling Eldad Yaniv, Barak’s former political strategist. Yaniv is now leading the weekly protests outside Mandelblit’s home demanding that he indict Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Finally, Yaniv’s image is pulling the strings controlling Meni Naftali, the former manager of the Prime Minister’s Residence. Naftali was fired from his position in 2014 and turned against Netanyahu ahead of the 2015 election, alleging that Sara Netanyahu is guilty of multiple acts of graft and breaches of faith.
Naftali’s testimony against Sara Netanyahu forms the basis of what will likely become the criminal indictment against her.
As soon as Yair posted the image, Haaretz published it as a news story. Haaretz, like the rest of the leftist universe, condemned the image as antisemitic and condemned Yair Netanyahu for trafficking in antisemitic incitement. Conservative and Reform American Jewish leaders were quick to join the anti- Yair bandwagon.
The truth is, they have a point. It is hard to deny that the cartoon he posted is antisemitic in effect if not in substance.
In the face of the onslaught against Yair, some right-wing commentators and political allies of his father have come to his defense. The general argument made by a dozen or so Netanyahu defenders was that it is rich, to say the least, that the same leftists who call their political foes Nazis and fascists on seemingly a daily basis, have the nerve to take offense at young Netanyahu’s post. And there is a great deal of truth to the claim.
Haaretz, which has been leading the charge against Yair, and against his parents, cannot seem to stop calling members of the nationalist camp fascists and Nazis.
Haaretz writers constantly attack Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, for instance, as “Mussolini” or a “Nazi” or a “fascist” for trying to advance a judicial reform agenda that is supported by the vast majority of the Israeli public.
So indeed, it is absurd that Haaretz can dare to wail about antisemitism from Yair Netanyahu, whose parents have been subjected to pathological attacks, for decades, by the far-left publication.
But again, while the Left’s wounded cries are hypocritical, they aren’t wrong.
True, George Soros is a major engine behind the worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist generally and the BDS movement in particular.
True, George Soros is a major engine of a parallel campaign within the American Jewish community to convince American Jewry to abandon its support for Israel.
And true, in an interview with 60 Minutes in 1998, Soros proudly admitted that he collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
But despite all of this, it is undeniable that some of the attacks against Soros over the years have been antisemitic. During the Asian currency crisis in 1997, for instance, then-Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohammed accused Soros of leading a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to harm the Muslims.
And then there is David Duke, the white supremacist leader behind the Charlottesville riot. After Haaretz reported and published Netanyahu’s Facebook post, Duke republished the Haaretz article and proclaimed that it gave credence to his claim that Soros controls America.
The thing is, Yair Netanyahu is smart enough to know an antisemitic image when he sees one.
So how did he dare to publish it? And this brings us back to the Left’s favored mode of public discourse.
The purpose behind the Left’s constant use of loaded terms like Nazi and fascist to describe its political foes is not to win a substantive policy dispute.
Rosenthal didn’t call Yair Netanyahu a Hitler Youth because he wanted to prove that Antifa and Black Lives Matter are not powerful engines of antisemitism on the Left.
Leftists use terms like these to demonize their political opponents and render them toxic so that the public will be too embarrassed to support them or agree with them.
These assaults are not limited to one issue. They span the spectrum of all the Left’s hot button issues, from women in combat to gay marriage to climate change to public funding of anti-Israel movies and plays to judicial reform and the Palestinians.
Anyone who rejects the Left’s positions is subjected to a campaign of demonization that is unrelenting, unsubstantiated and always over the top.
These campaigns have delivered two results – both of which are far different from the ones the Left intended.
First, they have made a very large portion of the public hate the Left. Whereas in the past the public sympathized with the Left but voted Right because it believed the Left was well-meaning but misguided, today little of that goodwill remains.
The other, deeper, consequence is that terms that should be deeply meaningful have now become virtually meaningless.
If Shaked is a Nazi for trying to advance a wildly popular judicial reform agenda, then the term “Nazi” is meaningless. If attacking Soros, one of Israel’s most dangerous and powerful enemies in the Western world, is antisemitic, while endemic, genocidal Jew-hatred throughout the Muslim world is strategically insignificant, then antisemitism is an empty term. And so on and so forth down the line.
In other words, Yair Netanyahu could use antisemitic imagery to attack the people he believes are persecuting his mother because as far as he is concerned, the concepts behind the images more powerfully evoke the Left’s campaign against his parents than they resonate centuries of antisemitic imagery.
Again, this isn’t to say that Netanyahu was right to use the image. He was wrong. But his decision is no mere personal failing. Rather it is a symptom of a far greater problem.
The Left’s constant misuse of intrinsically important terms has caused these terms to lose their meaning.
And as a consequence, our national discourse is becoming more irresponsible, crass and untethered from substance, to the detriment of our society and our future.

Caroline Glick is the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project and the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com. Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267911/yair-netanyahu-and-angry-left-caroline-glick Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

US President tells UN Iran nuclear deal 'one of the worst transactions US ever entered into' and 'an embarrassment' to the US.

US President Donald Trump warned that the US may be forced to completely destroy North Korea if the rogue state does not abandon its nuclear program and aggressive foreign policies and if it attacks the US or its allies during his first speech to the UN General Assembly Tuesday.

"The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea," Trump said.

"Rocket Man is on suicide mission for himself and for his regime," he added.

“No nation on earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arming itself with nuclear weapons and missiles,” he said. “It is time for North Korea to realize that denuclearization is its only acceptable future.”

Trump called on the world to unite to stop North Korea. "It is time for all nations to work together to isolate the Kim regime until it ceases its hostile behavior."

Trump said that the world must also confront Iran.

"It is far past time for the nations of the world to confront another reckless regime, one that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing death to America, destruction to Israel, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room. The Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of democracy,” the president said.

He said that the Iranian regime had changed the country's chief exports to "violence, bloodshed and chaos.”

"The longest suffering victims of Iran's leaders are in fact its own people. Rather than use its resources to improve Iranian lives, its oil profits go to Hezbollah and other terror groups that kill innocent Muslim and attack their Arab and Israeli neighbors,” he said.

"We cannot let a murderous regime continue these destabilizing activities while building dangerous missiles, and we cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program.

He called the 2015 Iran nuclear deal "an embarrassment" to the US and "one of worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into."

He called on Iran to "stop supporting terrorists, begin serving its own people, and respect the sovereign rights of its neighbors. The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want change."

Gary WilligSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/235746 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.